Re:Activism

Charles Yust and Leanne Wagner

Extended Abstract

Re:Activism is a big-urban-game designed and launched for the Come Out and Play festival in New York City. The game revisits locations of historic protests and teaches game participants about the events and related social causes. In order to progress through the game, the participants raise awareness of protest events by creating present day interventions and public interactions. Teams of game-players race from location to location to complete challenges and use activist tactics to increase their score. The teams also use mobile phones to send and receive text messages as they progress through the game and completed challenges.

The game was built around a participatory model that provided a structure through which spontaneous or directed interactions could occur in the public realm. This meant that the game-learning experience could be designed to a certain point, but then had to be play-tested in order to continue the iterative design process. Design and play-testing of the game were rotated over the course of eight weeks preceding the official launch of the game. Each iteration contributed toward advancements in the design and added to the overall learning experience. This method of design has been referred to by Come Out and Play co-founder, Nick Fortugno as a "second-order" design problem, meaning that the design is not complete until the game has been played.

An essential part of the iterative and participatory design approach was play-testing, which allowed for early game-play using rapid prototypes. The game needed to be played and tested early and often in order to make sure the design was conceptually sound and learning would be facilitated. Utilizing this method of iteration early in the design process revealed inadequacies in the mobile communication setup and scoring. It also raised important design questions such as: How much time was needed to travel from site to site? How many sites should be included in the final three-hour version of the game? How many challenges should be included at each site? Did participants learn about social causes and protest events as they played the game?

The use of text messaging and mobile technology provided a metaphorical link to activist tactics used in the past. For example text messaging was used by protestors during the 2004 Republican National Convention protests to coordinate actions and avoid arrests. As teams moved from location to location throughout the city text messages were sent to relay scores and record challenges. A custom python-based software solution was developed to allow for an increase in communicative capacity, regular scoring updates, and a rapid reply-rate as teams played the game.

The poster proposed for the Meaningful Play conference will use information graphics to illustrate the three levels of learning that occurred during the iterative design process, development, and play of Re:Activism. This learning occurred for the game developers in researching protest history, for the players as they engaged in protest actions during game-play, and for the public through interaction with the game players. The poster will also include documentation from actual game-play.